


Until the Next Horizon

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Flirting, Chemist!Fitz, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Reincarnation AU, accused terrorists, angst gallor, based on the book The Next Together, set in future, set in past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9225557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Curious about her new lab partner, Jemma Simmons is determined to find any social network account of Leo Fitz's which isn't set to private. When she finally comes across a public article about his scientific achievements, along with a photograph, she is surprised to see herself in the photo standing alongside him.She is even more surprised when she finds out that the photo was taken more than twenty years ago.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the book The Next Together by Lauren James, I highly recommend it, the book has soooo many Fitzsimmons parallels. Although, you may need a drawer filled with tissues - because one box is not enough - and also a crane to lift you out of bed after all of the comfort food which you will eat, because that book is so angsty but you kind of can't put it down. Also, there are two more lifetimes in the book which I didn't include in this fic because I wouldn't be able to stop crying if I did, but yeah.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I am trying to write a happier alternative to the book here, but there will be angst, not as much as the book itself but enough. I will try to update as frequently as possible, I am in the process of moving home and so the wifi is kind of crap, and yeah, please enjoy.

Prologue:  


The last time they were together, the world appeared like a haze. A blur. Fading as they tried to savour a few more moments with each other, their last moments with each over. Their heartbeats elevated, their movements too quick for their minds to catch up with. Their hands reached for each other as they ran. Running from the heavy footsteps which sounded not far behind them, running from their impending destinies.

 

“It’s happening again,” Jemma whispered breathlessly. Fitz didn’t reply, there were no words which could comfort her, so instead he squeezed her hand tightly, reassuringly. She knew what it meant. They were about to die.

 

It had happened before, and Jemma was almost certain it would happen again. Just as they would find each other again.

 

They turned a corner, reaching an empty room where they could hide until their anticipated deaths caught up to them. Jemma tried to calm her breathing, her louds gasps for breath were startling in the thick silence of the room. They stared at each other, listening for their pursuers.

 

Time was running out, they had no longer than three minutes left in their lifetime, in this lifetime. They were going to be found, it was just a question of whether or not they could finish their task first.

 

“Next time, we’re moving somewhere hot and quiet before any of this happens,” Jemma whispered.

 

Fitz pulled her closer to him, holding her lithe frame for the last time. “I like the Seychelles,” he declared, offering her a weak smile before lowering his head and placing his lips upon her own in one final, desperate kiss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

University of Sheffield, 2039.

To her own surprise, Jemma was in no mood for today’s biology class. Despite science being her passion, the thought of carrying out such basic scientific tasks was so terribly draining, not to mention offensive. They were university students for goodness sake, not five year olds. She swore the only reason Professor Nathanson kept their experiments so basic was because he feared Jemma would upstage him, yet again, in front of the entire class.

It seemed he had a personal vendetta against Jemma, seeing as everyone else in her class had been assigned a lab partner but herself. Which was fine with Jemma, really it was. She didn’t need anyone to slow her down, even in the most simplest of tasks. Yet, when she looked around the room during an experiment to see her peers laughing and talking with one another, she felt a tad lonely. It wasn’t like they were interesting people, she reminded herself. The only thing they appeared to be good for was gossiping, which wasn’t exac-

 

Jemma’s train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared from behind her. Jemma turned around to see Professor Nathanson standing closer than she would have deemed necessary, she put on her most cheerful smile and asked him if he needed help with anything. In all honesty, he looked like he could use a hand looking for the will to live. His eyes were accessorised by bags, drooping under them unattractively, his expression one of complete boredom, one which Jemma didn’t understand. If anyone should look as bored as he does, it should at least be her.

 

“Here’s your new lab partner.” He intoned dully, pushing the boy towards Jemma. “He’s just transferred from chemistry, why don’t you catch him up on what we’ve been doing, thanks.” Nathanson rushed the last half of his sentence, hurrying away to deal with another student who seemed incapable of holding a beaker – a beaker which now lay on the floor, smashed into dozens of pieces.

 

Jemma paid no attention to her clumsy classmates however, as her gaze was transfixed on the boy standing right in front of her. The two gaped at each other for what seemed like hours, in an odd fascination, with a sense of what could only be described as familiarity. Jemma couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from his breathtakingly blue eyes, from his symmetrical face, from…well, him really. And it seemed he couldn’t take his eyes off her, either. The look on his face was very indecipherable – she looked forward to figuring out what his different facial expressions meant. Was this what awe looked like when painted on his face? Disgust? She furrowed her brow, before remembering herself and where they were. She cleared her throat and it, too, snapped the boy out of his trance.

 

“Hi,” Jemma finally broke the intense silence and inwardly cringed at how breathless and coy she sounded.

 

He simply nodded in response, as if he were frightened by her. _Great,_ Jemma mentally scolded herself, _he hasn’t even been here for five minutes and you’ve already scared him off. Maybe a joke might lighten the mood?_

 

She cleared her throat, again, fearful that her voice may come across as croaky and heighten the tension. “So, welcome to my lair. Please, feel free to make yourself at home.” It wasn’t the finest ice breaker but somehow it appeared to work, and the boy seemed to visibly relax. Perhaps it worked too well, because a moment later the boy with sandy, loose curls and five o’clock shadow reached into his backpack and pulled out a collection of notepads and a food container. _A food container. **In a biology lab?**_ Honestly, did this boy have no survival instincts whatsoever? When the boy noticed she was staring at him, again, his pasty complexion deepened.

 

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of his blushing. Was it a good thing, a guy blushing because you looked at him? He may as well have a name tag saying ‘Hello, I’m a shy, socially awkward scientist. Please avoid eye contact or else I may just faint.” Jemma could audibly imagine him introducing himself as such, his Scottish lilt rushing over the words.

 

“Uh, is there somewhere I can keep this?” He asked, holding his lunch container up to show her. _How odd,_ Jemma thought to herself as she realised he sounded exactly as she had imagined. Why had she assumed he would be Scottish? Perhaps, it was his pastiness? She wondered before shaking her head in response to his question.

 

“Unless you want to share your sandwich with a dead cat, then no.” The boy visibly blanched. A change of subject, then? “I didn’t quite catch your name. I’m Jemma Simmons.” She introduced brightly, she extended her hand to him but he hadn’t seen it, as he was too busy aggressively shoving his sandwich back into his backpack.

 

“Fitz,” he told her once he looked up again, “Leo Fitz.”

 

She ran the name through her mind twice, in attempts to figure out why he seemed so familiar. “Have we met before?” She asked. When he paled slightly, she rushed to add, “Perhaps whilst interviewing for Uni or at the opening day, maybe?”

 

“We haven’t met before. I would have remembered.” He said casually before blushing. He then stammered, “I mean, it’s just that I haven’t been to this country before. I moved here for university.”

 

She narrowed her eyes sceptically at him. Since Scotland had gained independence from England after the last world war, almost twenty years ago, it had become almost impossible to get permits to study internationally. He must be particularly intelligent, she thought.

 

She looked him over once more. It didn’t appear as though he were lying, so where did she know him from?

 

He became uncomfortable under her gaze, making no effort to change the subject or even make any form of communication with her. After, the silence stretched long enough to be deemed awkward, she decided to take matters into her own hands, yet again. “So, why are you making the transfer to biology?”

 

Fitz had equally anticipated and dreaded this question; would she figure out that something wasn’t right? “They promised way more explosions than they actually delivered.” He hoped his answer hadn’t sounded too rehearsed, if it had maybe Jemma would shrug it off, assuming he had been asked it many times already. God, he hoped so.

 

“Well, I hope you won’t be too disappointed by the lack of explosions, here either. Though, there aren’t nearly as many dissections here as we were promised.”

 

Fitz didn’t see how that was a bad thing; the less dissections, the better. “Shame. How’s your physics departments?” He teased.

 

“Not nearly as great as the biology department.” Jemma replied smugly. Fitz could only press his lips together in a thin line, preventing himself from defending the department he so desired to work in. Physics had always been his favoured science, maybe one day, he could revisit it.

 

“Oh, and why is that?” He asked.

 

“Because the physics department doesn’t have me, of course.” She flicked her hair in a vain pretence and smiled proudly when Fitz chuckled at her.

 

“I’ll bare that in mind.” The two smiled at each other for a long moment before Jemma shook her head.

 

“Right, then. We best get to work.” She handed Fitz a pair of latex gloves. Their hands touched, just slightly. Jemma supressed a shudder, and closed her eyes for a moment. She felt strange. As though something significant had just occurred without her notice.

 

                >First contact established in time-landscape 2039

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jemma sat in her room and stared blankly at the concrete wall, littered with family photos. Her gaze flickered from photo to photo, looking from one friendly face to another, in attempts to ease the knotting sensation in her stomach. She felt as though something profound had happened, yet she couldn’t place what it was.

 

When her hand had touched Fitz’s earlier, she could have sworn that something… There had definitely been something. She blinked and tried to remember exactly what had happened. She had felt strange, a feeling of déjà vu had cast over her. He seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. After all, he had only just moved here, how could she have met him before?

 

Leo Fitz had been in her life for one day and he’d already left her brain in uproar, and she didn’t even know anything about him.

 

She glided her finger along her desk, awakening the computer screen in the table. She had to find out more about him, about why she felt this way and it seemed the best way to do that was by stalking him online. I mean, everyone did it, and she only wanted to find out more about him and what he was like, all good intentions – nothing weird. Perfectly understandable.

 

She had found his university profile within seconds of her search, however, much to her chagrin, his profile had been set to private. The only thing she could access was the picture. It looked like it had been taken before a school prom. Jemma admired the photo for a few seconds, noticing how much Fitz had filled out since the photo was taken. Her fingers hovered over the ‘send friend request’ button, but didn’t tap. Instead, she searched for some other social-networking account, in hopes of gaining access.

 

All of the websites she came across were over twenty years old, from before World War III had even begun. They clearly weren’t about her lab partner. When the name Leopold Fitzsimmons appeared more than once in her searches, she decided to take notice of the name and read up on him. Jemma clicked on the first link that appeared, which led her to an old science laboratory. The article was about the development of _Incapacitating Cartridge Emitting Railguns,_ Jemma skim read the article, looking for the first mention of Leopold Fitzsimmons:  


_...along with facility improvements which will commence in May._

_On further note, Dr’s LEO and JEMMA FITZSIMMONS (pictured below) have successfully upgraded their former prototype of the ‘Night-night pistol’, the weapon is now said to be three times more effective in preventing threats. The designs of the pistol are in progression; shotguns, sniper rifles, and assault rifles are in current development. The effective tranquilising gun has be renamed, ‘Incapacitating Cartridge Emitting Railguns’ (I.C.E.R.’s) - which we along with our anonymous contractors agree is a much better name. The development of non-lethal weapons has been…_

Jemma paused. Was that… _her_? Her eyes had caught a glimpse of the photograph attached to the article as she skim read. She swiped down, quickly and zoomed in on the photo. The photo was of a man and a woman who, rather than lab coats, wore blazers and shirts of similar colours. Jemma allowed herself to admire how nice Fitz looked in burgundy. Except, this wasn’t Fitz. But in a way, he was.

 

The pair looked older than she and Fitz, just slightly. The man’s stubble was a lot thicker than Fitz’s, and his hair had been shaven at the sides, not completely but enough to make him look older. His eyes were the same, however. A constant ocean of blue. She couldn’t help but notice how close the pair were standing. Their shoulders pressed against each other as they each held up a prototype of the I.C.E.R.

 

She had no idea how to react, they looked exactly like her and Fitz. In fact, she was looking directly at a photo of her new lab partner and herself.

 

Which was somehow taken **_more than twenty years ago_**.

 

This wasn’t just a passing similarity, they were identical. Jemma Fitzsimmons had her face; her defined eyebrows, her plump lips, a light spray of freckles, and even her autumn eyes. She even had her name. Or part of her name, it seemed that the other Jemma had combined surnames with her husband. Her husband who just so happened to be Leo Fitz. Her lab partner. What did this _mean_?


End file.
